This invention relates to a composition comprising glycerides, particularly triglycerides, to a process for producing the composition and to the use of the composition as a coating fat.
Bakery products such as donuts, cakes, cookies, biscuits and pastries are often coated with a layer of chocolate. The coating can be partial or complete. Although the coating can be of chocolate, it is sometimes preferable to use a chocolate-like composition that contains triglycerides.
Triglyceride fats are often characterized in terms of their fatty acid content. The term fatty acid generally refers to straight chain carboxylic acids having from 12 to 24 carbon atoms and is used herein to refer to the carboxylic acid residues bound to the glycerol moiety in the triglyceride, and not to free carboxylic acid. Typically, the abbreviation S is used to denote a saturated fatty acid residue having 12 to 24 carbon atoms and U denotes an unsaturated fatty acid residue having 12 to 24 carbon atoms. Thus, for example, a pure triglyceride containing three saturated fatty acid residues is denoted SSS (having the same meaning as S3 or S3) and a triglyceride having saturated fatty acids at the 1 and 3 positions and an unsaturated fatty acid at the 2-position is denoted SUS. S2U (or its equivalent term S2U) refers to combined SSU and SUS, and SU2 (or SU2) refers to combined SUU and USU. U3 (or U3) refers to UUU.
Triglyceride fats have been proposed for a number of food applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,939,114 discloses coatings for ice creams. The coatings contain triglycerides having less than 10% of SSS.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,736 describes additive fats for inhibiting fat blooming or graining of hard butter compositions. These fats are high in palm mid-fraction and will have high SUS levels.
EP-A-0536824 relates to non-temper confectionery fats. The fats have a relatively high SUS content.
There remains a need for triglyceride fat compositions, particularly those that are suitable for use as coatings on products that are sold and/or consumed at ambient temperature (i.e., 5 to 30° C.). There is a continuing need for compositions that can be produced economically and that have good organoleptic properties when used as coatings, such as on bakery or confectionery products.